Long non-coding RNA (
lncRNA) has an important role in
carcinoma progression and prognosis. However, little is known about the pathological role of
lncRNA HOTTIP (HOXA transcript at the distal tip) in
colorectal cancer (CRC) patients. This study attempted to investigate the association of
lncRNA HOTTIP expression with progression and prognosis in CRC patients.
LncRNA HOTTIP expression was measured in 156 CRC tissues and 21 adjacent non-malignant tissues using qRT-PCR. In present study, our results indicated that
lncRNA HOTTIP was highly expressed in CRC compared with adjacent non-malignant tissues (P<0.001), and positively correlated with T stage (T1-2 vs. T3-4, P = 0.001), clinical stage (I-II stages
vs. III-IV stages, P = 0.003), and distant
metastasis (absent vs. present, P = 0.014) in CRC patients. Furthermore, we also observed that increased
lncRNA HOTTIP expression was an unfavorable prognostic factor in CRC patients (P = 0.001), regardless of T stage, distant
metastasis and clinical stage. Finally, overexpression of
lncRNA HOTTIP was supposed to be an independent poor prognostic factor for CRC patients through multivariate analysis (P = 0.017). In conclusion,
lncRNA HOTTIP overexpression maybe serves as an unfavorable prognosis predictor for CRC patients. However, a further larger sample size investigation is needed to support our results.